March events of 1918 in Azerbaijan

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The March events denote an ethnic conflict and mass murders of the Azerbaijani population that occurred from March 30th to April 3rd, 1918 in Baku and other areas of Azerbaijan. During these three days, around 12,000 Azerbaijanis were killed because of their religion and ethnicity. The national day of remembrance for deceased Azerbaijanis has been held on March 31 every year since 1918.

The Scientific Services of the German Bundestag came after an investigation to the conclusion that based on current state of research only a few sources to the March events of 1918 are found. In the specialist literature and journalism there are different descriptions of the events, procedures and the number of victims, which makes a reliable representation difficult.

Iranian postcard from the Iranian consul Vezare-Maragai from Baku with the Persian text: “The annihilation of the Muslims in Baku.” The Iranian consul stands in front of the Muslim victims in Baku after the March days of 1918.
Azerbaijani victims in Baku
The Ismailiyya building burned down completely during the days of March 1918
The dead of the March events are driven away from Baku

prehistory

In 1917, following the October Revolution, the Soviet Bolsheviks, led by Stepan Shahumyan, took control of the Baku district and established the Baku Commune . Armenian fighters came to Karabakh in the autumn of 1917 , destroying more than 100 Azerbaijani settlements and killing over 7,000 people. As early as January 1918 there were conflicts between Armenian nationalists and the Azerbaijani population. However, diplomats like Məhəmməd Əmin Rəsulzadə and Nariman Narimanov were initially able to mediate. The establishment of the commune resulted in clashes between Rəsulzadəs equality party and the communists under Shahumyan.

On March 9, 1918, the Azerbaijani regiment, led by General Talishinsky, arrived in Baku to attend the funeral of Muhammad Taghiyev, son of Zeynalabdin Taghiyev , who had been buried a few days earlier in the city of Lənkəran by Soviet Armenians on March 27 Troops had been killed. A few days before General Talishinsky arrived in Baku, Stepan Shahumyan received this telegram from Lenin :

Dear Comrade Shahumyan,
I thank you for your letter. Your political attitude makes us an honor. You have to master the current situations and react diplomatically. We are sure that we will be on the road to victory in the end. The difficulties were unpredictable, but thanks to the distraction of the imperialists, we got very far with our common policy. Try to settle the conflicts with diplomacy, because it is your only hope at the moment.
Best regards,
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Because of the imprisonment, there were demonstrations by the Azerbaijani people against the Soviet leadership, which ultimately led to armed clashes in Baku and other cities. They lasted from March 30th to April 3rd, 1918 and are referred to as "March Events".

Course of events

On March 30, 1918, the Dashnak groups, allied with the Bolsheviks, opened fire on Muslims at the Armenian Church in Baku. On March 31st, the Azerbaijani quarters “Brickworks”, “Məmmədli” and others were bombed by planes from the air and from the Caspian Sea by Soviet warships. The Dashnaks had convinced the Soviet units that the Azerbaijanis had killed Russians in these quarters and in the old town. Armenian nationalists ransacked the houses and burned them down. Many Azerbaijani schools, libraries and cultural institutions were destroyed in those days. During the attack on the old town of Baku İçəri Şəhər , the armed groups that called themselves “Revolutionary Defense”, led by Anastas Mikojan, destroyed structures such as the “Ismailliyä”, the editorial offices of Open Word ,   Kaspi , Baku and the towers of the Tezepir Mosque with the help of cannons and they killed many civilians. More than 15,000 people were killed in Baku.

After the massacres of the Azerbaijani population in Baku almost ended, they continued on April 3 in the Şamaxı region until April 16. Armenian units had already been sent to Şamaxı in January, and more followed in March, bringing a total of 2,000 soldiers to the region. With the help of local Armenian, Molokan and Russian villagers, 58 villages in Schmachi were destroyed. More than 8,000 people were killed in these attacks, including 1,653 women and 965 children. Hundreds were missing. In the Quba region , 122 villages were burned down under the Armenian group leader Hamazasp and their inhabitants were killed. Mass murders also occurred in Xaçmaz , Lənkəran , Hacıqabul , Salyan , Sangesur , Nakhichevan and other Azerbaijani areas. Later the Armenian groups united with the Armenians living in Karabakh and attacked other cities and regions such as Gəncə , Şəki , Yevlax .

The Armenian groups involved called themselves the "Red Guards". They consisted of a total of 10,000–12,000 armed mercenaries, who in turn were divided into smaller groups with their own respective group names. Of these, 70–80% were Armenian nationalists. In addition, the Dashnak party brought almost 7,000 Armenians from the hinterland to Baku to arm them and to kill Muslims.

The main organizer of these mass murders, Stepan Shahumyan , wrote in a letter to the Central Committee of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic on April 13, 1918 :

“We spread the enemy attack, which was not given, as a sham attack for our soldiers in the first ranks to justify the attack on our part. These consisted of about six thousand armed forces […] In addition, there were more than four thousand mercenaries provided by the Dashnak party, who were also under my command. We would have to give the development of the civil war planned by us a national character in order to realize the national annihilations, which circumstance we could not refuse. We consciously played with the national character in order to achieve our goals. "

aftermath

Georgia gained independence on May 27, 1918, and Azerbaijan and Armenia declared their independence on May 28. Because of the unclear definition of the borders, new conflicts between Azerbaijan and Georgia emerged immediately. The disputed areas, the governorates of Baku and Gəncə, made up two thirds of Azerbaijan.

A year after the events, the incidents were portrayed in the Armenian media as a conflict between the Muslims and the Soviet leadership. In the summer of 1919, after the American General James Harbord came to Baku as an international observer, he was presented with a report from the Armenian Bishop Baqrat, who denied full Armenian involvement and participation in these events. Over half of the dead were portrayed as Armenian victims.

After Baku was taken by the Ottoman and Azerbaijani troops in September 1918, they carried out a massacre of the Armenians there, which some historians associate with the March events as an act of revenge.

literature

Web links

Commons : March Events in Azerbaijan  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kipke: The Armenian-Azerbaijani relationship and the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. 2012, pp. 23–24.
  2. ^ Events in March / April 1918 in Azerbaijan . Scientific services of the German Bundestag . Status WD 1 - 3000 - 014/16. Retrieved June 7, 2019.
  3. ^ Rüdiger Kipke: Caucasus trouble spot . Azerbaijan in the focus of (Soviet) Russian and Armenian interests. 2015, pp. 7–8.
  4. ↑ (Anastas Mikoyan - "Letter to Lenin" (May 22, 1912)) Contacts between Armenians and Lenin before 1918
  5. ↑ Firuz Kazemzadeh: Struggle For Transcaucasia (1917-1921) , New York Philosophical Library, 1951, p. 70.
  6. ↑ The Russian Revolution as National Revolution: Tragic Deaths and Rituals of Remembrance in Muslim Azerbaijan (1907-1920). In: Yearbooks for the History of Eastern Europe. Volume 49 (2001).
  7. ↑ A. Lalajan - "Historical facts" (1938), pp. 79-107.
  8. ^ Report of the Soviet Commission of Inquiry
  9. ↑ Saven Korkodjan: The population of Soviet Armenia (1932) S. 184th